whom We have restored to life and to whom We have given a light whereby he may walk among men...?_” (Kor. vi, 122), i.e. “I am the Creator of the light in which believers are illumined”. It is God that opens and seals the hearts of men (Kor. xxxix, 23; ii, 6): therefore He alone is able to guide them. Everything except Him is a cause or a means, and causes and means cannot possibly indicate the right way without the favour of the Causer. He it is that imposes the obligation of piety, which is essentially gnosis; and those on whom that obligation is laid, so long as they are in the state of obligation, neither bring it upon themselves nor put it away from themselves by their own choice: therefore Man’s share in gnosis, unless God makes him know, is mere helplessness. Abu ´l-Ḥasan Núrí says: “There is none to point out the way to God except God Himself: knowledge is sought only for due performance of His worship.” No created being is capable of leading anyone to God. Those who rely on demonstration are not more reasonable than was Abú Ṭálib, and no guide is greater than was Muḥammad; yet since Abú Ṭálib was preordained to misery, the guidance of Muḥammad did not avail him. The first step of demonstration is a turning away from God, because demonstration involves the consideration of some other thing, whereas gnosis is a turning away from all that is not God. Ordinary objects of search are found by means of demonstration, but knowledge of God is extraordinary. Therefore, knowledge of Him is attained only by unceasing bewilderment of the reason, and His favour is not procured by any act of human acquisition, but is miraculously revealed to men’s hearts. What is not God is phenomenal (_muḥdath_), and although a phenomenal being may reach another like himself he cannot reach his Creator and acquire Him while he exists, for in every act of acquisition he who makes the acquisition is predominant and the thing acquired is under his power. Accordingly, the miracle is not that reason should be led by the act to affirm the existence of the Agent, but that a saint should be led by the light of the Truth to deny his own existence. The knowledge gained is in the one case a matter of logic, in the other it becomes an inward experience. Let those who deem reason to be the cause of gnosis consider what reason affirms in their minds concerning the substance of gnosis, for gnosis involves the negation of whatever is affirmed by reason, i.e. whatever notion of God can be formed by reason, God is in reality something different. How, then, is there any room for reason to arrive at gnosis by means of demonstration? Reason and imagination are homogeneous, and where _genus_ is affirmed gnosis is denied. To infer the existence of God from intellectual proofs is assimilation (_tashbíh_), and to deny it on the same grounds is nullification (_ta`ṭíl_). Reason cannot pass beyond these two principles, which in regard to gnosis are agnosticism, since neither of